After a violent death by an unknown force and a timely reanimation by the human supremacist organization Cerberus, Commander Shepard must assemble a new squad in the seedier side of the galaxy for a suicide mission in the second installment of the "Mass Effect" trilogy.

Poll: Recall your favourite Mass Effect 2 moment... (115 votes)

And lo, there was much gnashing of teeth as Mass Effect 2 took its place as Game of the Generation. But it probably deserved it.

I'm playing Mass Effect 3 again right now, and much like my experience with the Matrix trilogy, I keep thinking about my fonder memories of the second as I trudge through the third's plotline. :P

The moment I liked best in ME2 is the collector's invasion of the Normandy, controlling Joker, while he (aka Seth Green) hobbles around muttering "shit shit..shit SHIT shit!!" Moments of complete terror and helplessness with Joker being the player's proxy. That really spoke to me as the game writers' moment being self-aware, coming full circle with an entire crew of characters that operate independently of The Shepard. We're gonna save the galaxy soon, but ohhhhhh this shit's going bad and no dialogue wheel will save it.

But seriously, hmmmm. I liked quite a lot of that game, but it's been enough time that I can't really remember what part was my favorite. I was trying to go through the trilogy again, recently, but after I got Tali in ME 1 I was just like "I don't have time for this" and then uninstalled it.

Edit: After a bit of thinking, I'm gonna hafta say the suicide mission. I have a soft spot for anything that involves having your entire party work together like that. Mostly 'cause it reminds me of FF6

Holding out with Archangel against the attacking hordes. Fun combat, great to see a familiar face, and a real bittersweet sense of a lived in place in a Mass Effect universe that often feels antiseptic and gamey rather than like a place that could actually exist.

I also think ME3 was overrated in terms of terribleness. Yes the actual ending was kind of silly and not worthy of the series, but the journey to get there has a lot of exciting and interesting moments and the multiplayer was way better than a tacked on mode should have been. I know this argument has been beaten into the ground but I still don't get the need to bash ME3 every time the series gets mentioned. There are plenty of great TV shows with mediocre endings, how is this any different.

Suicide Mission was definitely the highlight of the game. Seriously, I was probably the most disappointed fan ever when I got to the ending of ME3 and realized that it wasn't going to be anywhere near as good as the second game's final mission. I imagined controlling armies, making decisions that would (again) influence whether my squad members lived or died, you know, ME2 but on a much larger scale.

Leaving the collector base (start at :35). That cutscene with the harbinger voice over and music together make this one of the best moments this gen. Also I really enjoyed Mordins loyalty mission. Fuck I love EVERYTHING about this damn game. Can't wait to see what the new game holds.

This is the second time today I was tricked into staring at that facsimile of a rump.

Edit: All of it was great save for the final boss. That was really weird and felt entirely out of place, if I recall. Personally it was the moments when my mostly good Shep would lose patience and get aggressive that stick out to me. There was a moment where the team was almost jumped by some dudes, but I saw a 'red trigger' and I triggered a scene that wiped out half the ambush in a really badass way. Stuff like that felt great.

Leaving the collector base (start at :35). That cutscene with the harbinger voice over and music together make this one of the best moments this gen. Also I really enjoyed Mordins loyalty mission. Fuck I love EVERYTHING about this damn game. Can't wait to see what the new game holds.

This this this, so much this.

I got chills when the music picked up, and all you hear is Harbinger still putting you down as everything is falling apart around it. The Reapers' Plan B failed immensely, and it does not phase his resolve to Shepard's demise one bit.

This brings one of my disappointments from the third game back to the forefront; we never had a good Shepard/Harbinger showdown.

We need a new term for the number of post it takes for a picture of Miranda's ass to show up in any Mass Effect 2-related thread. A "NOPUMAC" (Number Of Posts Until Miranda's Ass Count), if you will.

The ending. In a game full of great moments, that ending topped it all off really, really well.

Yeah man that giant baby was just the perfect cherry on top of an all around classy game.

Ok ok! I kid! That shit made me laugh super hard but the suicide mission was very cool, and assigning different tasks to different team members was cool. I really loved that mercenary character a lot, though I can never remember his name. That was my favourite part.

When you have that very first conversation with Legion in the AI Core. It totally blew my mind that I was talking with something that had been one of the mooks from ME1, and his entire conversation tree is fantastic!